Back in 2006 our Honorary Life
President at the time, the late, great Jack Dodds came up with an idea to
promote Bagatelle by holding an annual 'Open Knockout' competition.
Basically, this was to be a competition which would be held in every venue
in town which had a bagatelle table, the idea being to stimulate interest
in the game, and Jack very kindly offered to put up prize money for each
venue, and also for the final stages.
The competition started in 2007 and ran for 7 years. In that
time, hundreds of people entered, many playing
bagatelle for the very first time which was exactly Jack's intention.
Sadly, Jack passed away in 2011, but he made enough funds available to
enable the Committee to continue holding the competition with prize money
for a further two years.

The competition was free to enter, and
the format was that each entrant had two sticks
with the top four scorers going through to a semi-final stage where normal
'singles rules' applied. The winner and runner-up from each venue
then went forward to the next stage where a similar format reduced the
number of players down to eight. A Grand Final night was then
held, with the eight players each having two sticks and the top four going
forward to contest the semi-finals and final.

One
of the highlights of the seven years was the 2009 Final at the Talbot.
In the early stages Mike Turner scored a 53 and 'filled them up' on his
way to the semi-finals, a rare feat in a competition.
However, the night is possibly best remembered for the final between Dave
Cooper and Nigel Walker. Nigel won the toss and chose to go
first, scoring a brilliant 43+47=90. Dave Cooper then did even
better, scoring 52+39=91. Those present thought it was the
best final anyone could ever remember, with both players getting a
remarkable 90+.

Below is a list of all the winners and
runners-up of those Grand Finals, and also links to match reports,
including that 2009 final!

This page has been created to retain
the memory of the competition and as a tribute to Jack Dodd who made it
all possible.